Cursed Talisman
 

I despise this piece of technology. In fact it ruins PBW games by its existence. It makes economic management, carful ship design and reasonable play worthless.

Let me apologise to those people in NGC4 as I am using this silly game feature. In Negoc5 and Zeta, I also apologise, allthough given the game background and set up to not take religious was very, very brave.

Large PBW games become which team led by the talisman wins, others are merely targets or 'allies' to the mighty Talisman empire(s).

So, please, PLEASE dont put a Talisman in SEV.

Re: Cursed Talisman
 

if it didnt work vs fighters, drones, and misiles it would help...
then you could attempt to swamp the tailsman user with units

and make it more expencive so that only a certain number of ships can have it...

himnn howabout the more you have the cost multiplys?
so if oyu had 1 ship with it, it would cost X min,org,rad
if you have 2 it costs 1.5*X
etc. etc.

Re: Cursed Talisman
 

Better yet, what if you only had a certain number that could be built?

Perhaps a Talisman I means that you can build 2. Thats it. Only 2 ships in your entire empire could have it.

Talisman II means that 3 could be built

etc.

Re: Cursed Talisman
 

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">I fully agree, and to those few in Zeta who doesn't have the talisman, I too apologize for the usage of ths abominable device at my races behalf. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon9.gif

Re: Cursed Talisman
 

How about a talismant linked shield - ie if ship a is using talisman - then ship b being targetted will take 2000 points of damagae from such ships in addition to their normal damange - or yes make fighters etc more immune from it.

Or perhaps a planet construct that can block its use within the system.

Re: Cursed Talisman
 

One mod (I don't remember which offhand) has "Prayer Lances", that have 100% chance to hit, but otherwise are a normal weapon (they do good damage IIRC). Replacing the Talisman with a "talismanic" weapon like that might be less unbalancing. That's what I'm planning on doing in the MOAM Mod.

Re: Cursed Talisman
 

actualy thats a verry good idea, a 100% chance to hit but does less damage.
infact just make it a mount.

Re: Cursed Talisman
 

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">I would be one of those few...thus far it hasn't been too difficult...but I'm not exactly doing well anyways, which is in no way due to the Talisman, but to my own incompetence!! http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/tongue.gif

Re: Cursed Talisman
 

You can give them 1 boarding defense ability point like I did in Adamant (in addition to making them combat sensors instead of 100% to hit). Then, add a component that does Security Stations Only damage. You can then corrupt their talismans and make them non-functional (plus get a new weapon to help board ships http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon10.gif ).

[ June 12, 2004, 17:43: Message edited by: Imperator Fyron ]

Re: Cursed Talisman
 

In the beta group we suggested that the Talisman be reduced in power by either making it work only with certain weapons - and adding the 'always hits' power to a particular weapon is another way to do that http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon7.gif -- or by making it only function every few rounds. If it only gives you a 'guaranteed hit' every other or every third combat round that would be much less unbalancing. But then I guess you could mod that by making the dedicated weapon only fire every other or every third round. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon7.gif

I'd still like to see a 'time slip' device given to the Temporal tech field that gives a flat chance for any weapon, even a Talisman guided weapon, to miss.

Re: Cursed Talisman
 

In my mod, the Evolution mod, the religious talisman acts as a massive combat sensors. I Think I gave it an 80% to hit chance bonus. Unfortunatly, I am running a little behind in completing the mod http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/image...s/rolleyes.gif . (I am a terrible procrastinator.)

Re: Cursed Talisman
 

I think this is a fantastic idea. And it keeps the sense of the religious aspect to it. These are super-blessed, mystical devices that your race can consecrate, but they are sort of "Altars" and so there can only be a few of them, placed on your most important planets or vessels...

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">

Re: Cursed Talisman
 

Good idea in theory, but I don't see how the current program can be modded to do this.

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana"></font><hr /></blockquote><font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">EDIT - thinking it over, making the Talisman power a "mount" wouldn't work either, what's to prevent the player from putting it on all his weapons? Then we're back to square one...

[ June 12, 2004, 22:44: Message edited by: General Woundwort ]

Re: Cursed Talisman
 

Some ideas...

Make the talisman bigger so it only fits on larger ships.

Make it cost the equivilant of stellar comps, making it take longer to build the darn things.

Cause it to give a negative defense bonus, making them easier to hit.

Let it work only with seekers (blessed missles), thus you have PD defense.

Don't let it work with multi tracking (so they can only fire on one target at a time) or Master computers.

anyway to make it use a lot of supplies?

Increase research costs.

Edit: More ideas...

Require additional life support and crew compartments (for the priests)

If going the "stellar comp cost" route, do not allow refit unless it already contains the comp (like the colony modules) and have several levels to research (each level reduces the min, rad, org cost by a small factor).

Same if it gives a negative defense value (higher levels give lower negative defense penalties).

Along the lines of it not working with other comps- perhaps make it so it will not work with shields or armor, or both (it gets in the way).

Increasing the cost alone would reduce the number of ships that could be fielded, and would mean it would take considerable time to build a fleet. Numbers versus quality (especially if they can only use larger ships, and only target one ship at a time)

[ June 12, 2004, 23:00: Message edited by: clark ]

Re: Cursed Talisman
 

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">... and make Talisman completely useless. Seriously, nobody will use such overpriced and overweighted component on a warships and whole Religious trait becomes racial points waster.

Re: Cursed Talisman
 

Meditating upon the meaning of the word "talisman" gave me a idea that its current function is totally wrong http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/tongue.gif . Indeed, word "talisman" is synonym for "amulet" - something that protects against evil forces, so it should give defensive bonus, not offensive http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon7.gif
It could provide absolute protection against any form of destructive impact (weapon fire) every X turn, for example. But it's an idea for se5, actually.

Re: Cursed Talisman
 

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">This is probably on of the best, new suggestions for dealing with the talisman. Crystaline weapons puch right past the organic armor, so it makes sense for temporal tech to defeat the religious trait.

Re: Cursed Talisman
 

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">not if the mount increses the price, size, and/or decreaces the damage of the said weapon, also it would not effect PDC.

Re: Cursed Talisman
 

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">I'm pretty sure he didn't mean apply all of those things at once... just showing a bunch of different ways to balance it. The "automatic hit" in and of itself isn't unbalancing. But coupled with the small size and cheapness it has in Stock SE4, it sure is.

Re: Cursed Talisman
 

Simpliest and the best way to balance talisman is to take off its automatic hit and make it a component, which gives you for example 20% for attack and which would stack with combat sensor. Then it would not be all powerful (assuming they would still require 50 kt of space).

Re: Cursed Talisman
 

All great ideas if it is goign to carry forward into SE5

Re: Cursed Talisman
 

I wonder how many times this thing has been talked about? http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon7.gif It is just so damn lethal and when you watch your fleet be obliterated by a race employing this technology, you just wanna scream - FOUL! "Thats NOT fair!" http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon10.gif

Re: Cursed Talisman
 

It's been discussed before: It is over powered but it can be beat. And that's all I'll say about that.

The real problem is it's no fun! http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon9.gif

I'm in a game with five remaining players. Three of us have the talisman. I have the talisman, my partner does not. My two strongest opponents have the talisman, the third does not. My ship designs are simplicity itself: basics + talisman + shields + guns. No sensors, no stealth armor, no training, they are pointless.

When a battle occurs, there are few surprises. We count up the firepower on each side and the one with the most wins. Whoopee!

No, it's not the power of the talisman that is the problem, it's the certainty!

**For the record, the game still is fun despite the talisman because of the quality of the players. The chess game Cyclop and I have going on makes it all worthwhile! http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon6.gif **

Re: Cursed Talisman
 

So only one solution remains: every non-religious race ally and gang up on the religious races as early as possible. Just too bad if 9 out of 10 players take religious - even if they consider it to be no fun. I myself would rather prefer to loose a game than having to play a boring one.

Re: Cursed Talisman
 

Quit *****ing guys http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon12.gif

The strongest military (ships and weapons) racial tech is: Crystalline
A full tech Crystalline fleet can beat an equal value (not size) full tech Religious fleet anytime.

The real strenghts of Religious is:
1. It frees points from Agresivness.
2. The Shrines
3. It makes Sats and WP's valuable in late game.

Re: Cursed Talisman
 

Could you explain why, Primitive? I have considered the crystal technology to be a *very* weak one - I normally do not use extensive armor, preferring shields, so their main advantage is gone. Or even a disadvantage, as my ships retain that 30% defeinsive bonus from scattering/stealth armor which otherwise is destroyed first. The weapons itself are laughable apart from that questionable armor-skipping feature, standard weapons are better.
The crystalline armor is nice, though I am not sure how strong its features are exactly. Still, I doubt it is worth more than a 100% guaranteed hit.

Re: Cursed Talisman
 

If you have, say, 8 Crystalline Armor IIIs on a ship, that gives you 120 shields from damage. Any weapon that does 60 damage or less can not harm your ship. Once shields are down, 60 damage is done to the armor, and 60 points are added to the shield total. Next shot, you do 120 damage to the shields, as the partial damage from the previous hit adds to the current hit. The 60 shields are sapped, 60 damage is done to the armor. Next shot, the 60 damage is added to the damage against the shields. The 60 shield points are gone, 60 damage is done to the armor. This will continue for ever, without ever being able to destroy any armor. Try 420 kT of CA. That is 210 shields from damage. Any weapon that does 105 or less damage is useless. 420 kT is a lot of space to use though, but on dreadnoughts, it is doable.

Now, you can certainly through shield depleters between each weapon, which can help. Or use shield disruptors to eliminate the shield generators.

If it were not for large mounts doubling the damage per shot of your weapons and heavy mounts tripling it, this would be a huge problem. But, in practice, it is not that strong of a defense.

[ June 13, 2004, 21:47: Message edited by: Imperator Fyron ]

Re: Cursed Talisman
 

Its not just 420kt of CA though- you need the shields to hold that many shield points too.

Re: Cursed Talisman
 

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">Armor is not weak, shields are http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon12.gif
With shielddepleaters beeing so cheap and small, there is no problem putting enough on a fleet to make Shields viritually useless.

As Fyron says; putting loads of Crystalline Armor on ships make them able to take huge amounts of punishment, offsetting the advantage of the Talisman (Just remember to include enough shielddepleters and set your strategy to point-blank and targeting to Has weapons-Nearest-Something).

I'm not claiming that Crystalline is a better racial choice than Religious. The facilities and weapons are rather useless (except for the maintanance reducing facility), but the Crystalline Armor rules the skies when shipsizes get larger.

Re: Cursed Talisman
 

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">A Phased - Shield Generator III makes 225 shield points, which covers it. You only actually need 105 shield points to make use of the CA to be invincible against 105 damage or less weapons.

Re: Cursed Talisman
 

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">Which means, nobody will put the depleters on their ships as they do not think anybody will use the weak shields. Which makes shields strong... http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon12.gif
It all depends. That's why this game is still not boring for me, even with its obvious balance flaws which totally eliminate many of its possible choices / features.

Re: Cursed Talisman
 

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">Yep, thats what prompted my post.

It breaks the game, especially in large PBW games. The only challenge for the talisman wielder is can I Last 50 turns - then it is slaughter time.

Re: Cursed Talisman
 

I never fail to put shield depleters on my ships when I have them, and I never see good players fail to place them on their ships... they are very small on a battle cruiser or a battleship. It is just like PDC... including 1 or 2 doesn't substantially weaken your ships if you don't have targets for them, but not having them screws you over...

[ June 14, 2004, 00:16: Message edited by: Imperator Fyron ]

Re: Cursed Talisman
 

The best way to beat him is to be like him. When setting up a game choose religious tech and max out your aggressive and defensive characteristics, or ban religious technology all together from the game.

Re: Cursed Talisman
 

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">I was thinking that organic might be a way of fighting the cursed talisman, as it lets you get the 3 to 1 ratio of ships needed. Thoughts? Experiences?

[ June 14, 2004, 04:04: Message edited by: Joachim ]

Re: Cursed Talisman
 

Organic may work. Its also a strong Racial tech, but I believe it has its main advantages in the early/mid game (unlike Crystalline and Religious).

The Organic weapons are good, but the regenerating feature of Organic Armor is virtually useless in late game big battles. The organic armor is however extremely effective in the early/mid battles (up to something like 50 medium tech LC’s on each side) where the first line of ships actually have a chance to survive several rounds of action.

IIRC (long time since I tested); an Organic race will need something like 1.25 to 1.5 times the Mineral value (+ the orgs) to be even with a Talsiman fleet (late game / large fleets).

Re: Cursed Talisman
 

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">Simplest, maybe... but I like the Automatic Hit - gives the Talisman its flavor. Balance it in other areas instead (cost/size/etc).

Re: Cursed Talisman
 

Just to clarify, I wasn't suggesting that all of the ideas be implemented at the same time, but some of them alone, or together, in different combinations might allow for a "re-balance" since the Religious trait is generally considered so unbalancing.

There are other solutions as well, I think, such as preventing mounts with ships that contain the Religious Talisman (doable?). So then your ship will always hit, but it isn't doing as much damage.

You could also set it so only one ship class can use the Religious Talisman (the Religious Class, or whatever) much like a Colony ship must carry a colony module. This way you could mod that class of ship to take longer to build, maintain, or contain only so much space for weapons.

I think ideally though, something simple would be more effective, like preventing the use of shields and armor if the ship contains a Religious Talisman. No retrofit would also help too.

Defense penalties might balance it a bit, as the Religious player can "always" hit, but their opponent has a better chance of scoring a hit now.

Re: Cursed Talisman
 

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">Delete the component and add a mount with +999 to hit. It will have a 99% to hit rate (close enough to 100% http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon12.gif ), but will not allow any extra damage from other mounts.

Re: Cursed Talisman
 

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">This is correct. I once did some math and results were, that most effective combination is to have 11 crystal armor and 2 shield generators. 11 crystal armor makes you invulnerable to anything that makes less than 150 points of damage. However if one armor breaks, your damage resistace is lessened 15 points, etc. Naturally, when your armor starts to breal, it'll break faster and faster every round because components, which can generate shield points form hits, are destroyed and your "reflective shielding" is therefore weaker. So to be certain to stand a lot of punishment, you would nees some "spare armor components". Obviously, all this takes so much space, that your firepower would be weakened accordingly.

So, crystal armor is superb at the early and mid game, but later it becomes less usable, yet not totally useless.

[ June 14, 2004, 20:10: Message edited by: Karibu ]

Re: Cursed Talisman
 

More ideas for the talisman:

-Give it a maintenance penalty because of all the priests needed to attend to it... you might think twice about building a fleet of Talisman ships if they cost 4x as much to maintain!

-Give it the armor abiltity and something like 1 HP: the slightest scratch to the ship's hull will "defile" it http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon10.gif

-Double the tonnage (and structure too, I guess)... 100kT is a lot of space to use for a single component, even on a baseship! http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/shock.gif

-Increase cost to somewhere along the lines of a Master Computer (which are overpriced anyway http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/tongue.gif )

-Dunno if this will work, but how about negative systemwide ship training - unless you have Psychic Ship Training Facilities, your ships will gradually get worse and worse at defense! (I wonder if experience can go negative... http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/shock.gif )

-Allow the talisman to only be mounted on bases

-Not all of these at once or it will be useless! http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon10.gif

Re: Cursed Talisman
 

just as long as it is not removed from sev....

it is a great option that we should still have.... the automatic hit...

Just look at missles http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon7.gif